Latino Teens Have High Obesity and Diabetes Risks

The research participants were Latino teenagers because previous research showed almost 40 percent of Mexican American children ages 12 to 19 were found to be overweight or at risk of developing diabetes.

“Latino children are more insulin resistant and thus more likely to develop obesity-related chronic diseases than their white counterparts,” the authors write. “To date, only a few studies have examined the effects of a high-fiber, low-sugar diet on metabolic health in overweight youth, and to our knowledge, none have tested the effects of this type of intervention in a mixed-sex group of Latino youth.”